Seven Summers with Peregrines: Finding Midlife Adventures

In Seven Summers with Peregrines, a retired husband and wife recount the midlife adventures they shared while participating in the historic effort to return then-endangered Peregrine Falcons to their former range. During these summers, the couple camped in mountainous areas of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming for months at a time while caring for and monitoring captive-bred young Peregrines as they learned to hunt for themselves. The authors describe interactions with wildlife, including elk, mule deer, bighorn sheep and myriad bird species, as well as the challenges of primitive camping conditions, weather extremes, bears, rattlesnakes, flat tires and wildfires. Most memorable of all were the Peregrines themselves, the subjects of hours of observations and binders full of notes, as they matured and took to the skies. The book is structured on a framework of the scientific, procedural stages of the Peregrine reintroduction process. Enmeshed within each stage are the couple’s many personal stories, journal entries, and 36 black and white photos.